Abstract
Objective: The purpose of this study is to understand the role and effect of workplace incivility on employee emotional exhaustion, personality traits, customer satisfaction, employee self-worth, self-efficacy and perspective-taking intention. This study, in its exploration of past literature and based on the theoretical model of workplace incivility, recognised the research gaps and proposed new models. The study proposed three different models; two for the evaluation of employee incivility and the third focused on customer incivility. The first model tests the impact of employees' self-esteem on their work ethic, self- efficacy and satisfaction. It also tests the moderating influence of various types of incivility and the mediating effect of employee satisfaction. The second model explores the impact of various types of incivility on employee incivility. It also explores the moderating influence of gender and the moderating effects of personality traits, (a) neuroticism and (b) conscientious, in the relationship between various types of incivility. The third model tests the impact of employee incivility on customers' feeling of self-worth and the impact of employee self- efficacy on customers' perspective-taking intention. The model also tests the moderating effect of personality traits, the mediating influence of self-worth and the mediating influence of perspective-taking intention.Methodology: The study selected quantitative research methodology to analyse research models. A convenience sampling technique and non-probability sampling technique is used for sample collection. A survey questionnaire is integrated for the collection of primary data. Two separate questionnaires were designed and distributed having Likert scale. The study was carried out among a set of two different samples: customers and employees working in the Australian services sector.
Major Findings: In total, 226 responses were received from the customer incivility questionnaire (74.33% response rate) and 412 responses from the employee incivility questionnaire (68.6% response rate). The completed questionnaires were gathered and analysed using SmartPLS data analysis tools. All three models revealed statistically significant results. The study has significant findings that can be useful for Australian services sector employees in controlling different types of incivility behaviour.
Conclusion: For study 1: impact of employee self-esteem on employee perspective taking intention lead to the acceptance of H1 to H5. H6 to H8 acceptance reveals that employee satisfaction is a significant mediator. H9 to H13 testing reveals that gender is a significant moderator with male employees ()-value=4.51 and &-value=O.OOO) significantly have higher impact than their counterpart female employees ()-value=O.44 and &-value=O.653). For study 2: all co-worker incivility ()-value=6.27 and &-value=O.OOO), customer incivility ()-value=3.87 and &-value=O.OOO), supervisor incivility ()-value=2.86 and &-value=O.OO4) and e-incivility ()- value=4.59 and &-value=O.OOO) have significant impact on employee incivility and therefore, accepting hypotheses H14, H15, H16, H17 and H18. Gender is found to be a significant moderator and accepting hypothesis H19. For study 3: The partial least squares (PLS) output in Table 4.2 shows that employee incivility has significant positive impact on customers' self- worth (&-value=O.OO1; )-value=3.357); customer intention for perspective taking to customer satisfaction (&-value=O.OOO; )-value=4.275) and customer self-efficacy to perspective taking (&-value=O.O18; )-value=2.367), which lead to accept hypotheses H26, H28 and H29.
Managerial Implications & Major Contributions: This study contributed to the incivility literature in a unique manner, while explaining the relationships from the customer satisfaction and customer's intension of perspective taking. The study explains how a negative spiral of incivility can take a positive turn. This study is motivated to bring evidence related to workplace incivility and signify the need to have policies that foster civil behaviours and negate uncivil acts within the work environment, for the well-being of the employees.
Future Directions: The study presents interesting statistics about workplace incivility in Australian workplaces which can help policy makers in developing effective policies to control workplace incivility.
| Date of Award | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Original language | English |
| Supervisor | Johra FATIMA (Supervisor) & Raechel JOHNS (Supervisor) |